Friday, February 27, 2009

World Congress of Families Reacts to UNFPA Leader Who Says Family Breakdown is a 'Triumph' for 'Human Rights'

/PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- In response to a leader of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) who declared that family breakdown is a triumph for human rights, World Congress of Families Managing Director Larry Jacobs said he was only surprised that UNFPA is now willing to admit what has always been part of its agenda.

At a recent colloquium in Mexico City, Arie Hoekman, a UNFPA representative from the Netherlands, told participants that high rates of divorce and out-of-wedlock births represent the triumph of "human rights" over "patriarchy."

Jacobs stated, "Ironically, the UNFPA ignores international law and their own UN declaration on the basic human rights of children and the natural family as outlined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Section 16 of the United Nations UDHR adopted in 1948 states that, 'the family is the natural fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the state.' Furthermore, UDHR states, 'men and women of full age, without any limitation, due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family.'"

Jacobs charged: "Deconstructing the natural family has always been high on the agenda of groups like UNFPA. Ignoring international and domestic laws, they pursue this goal relentlessly through funding and promoting abortion, contraception and coercive population control - such as China's one-children-per-family policy.

Jacobs continued: "There are reams of data showing that children from broken homes, either through divorce or failure to form families, have much higher levels of drug and alcohol abuse, crime and mental illness than their counterparts from intact families. But, perhaps Hoekman thinks these social pathologies also represent the triumph of human rights over patriarchy."

Jacobs concluded: "If Hoekman thinks fatherless families are an advance for human rights, he should spend time in America's inner cities, where they are the norm and life is exceedingly dangerous." Jacobs also noted that unattached males in their teens and twenties drive the crime problem in most developed nations.

Even U.S. President Barack Obama recognizes the importance of two married parents at home. As he stated during his speech on Father's Day, "We...need families to raise our children. We need fathers to realize that responsibility does not end at conception. We need them to realize that what makes you a man is not the ability to have a child - it's the courage to raise one."